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Matlab As A Calculator

Matlab is an interactive programming environment for numerical computation, programming, and visualization. It allows for faster program development than low-level languages like Fortran or C, though the tradeoff is slower execution speed. Matlab can perform basic arithmetic, assign values to variables, and evaluate expressions involving variables. It uses double precision floating point numbers and built-in functions for mathematical operations like exponentials, logarithms, and trigonometric functions.

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Muhammad Adeel Ahsen
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68 views

Matlab As A Calculator

Matlab is an interactive programming environment for numerical computation, programming, and visualization. It allows for faster program development than low-level languages like Fortran or C, though the tradeoff is slower execution speed. Matlab can perform basic arithmetic, assign values to variables, and evaluate expressions involving variables. It uses double precision floating point numbers and built-in functions for mathematical operations like exponentials, logarithms, and trigonometric functions.

Uploaded by

Muhammad Adeel Ahsen
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Why Matlab? Matlab is an interactive, high-level, user-friendly programming and visualization environment.

It allows much faster programs development in comparison with the traditional low-level compiled languages like Fortran or C. The trade-off here is the execution speed. The Matlab code may run 10 times slower than the corresponding Fortran/C code. But modern computers are fast!

Matlab as a calculator
Typing matlab from the Unix prompt will start the program. Simple calculations can be performed interactively: >> 7+(19-6)*8^2/4-3 ans = 212 % simple example

Matlab performs here basic arithmetic operations + - * / and exponentiation ^ on integers following the same precedence/order of evaluation rules as in Fortran/C languages: 1) parentheses, 2) exponentiation, 3) multiplication/division, 4) addition/subtraction; % a comment, Matlab ignores everything to the right of this symbol; ans is a built-in default variable name to which the result is assigned. We can refer to this name in the next statement: >> (ans-12)/2 ans = 100 It would be better to assign the result/expression to the variable of your own choosing:
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>> sun=47+13 sun = 60 Typing sun at the prompt shows that the variable sun has the value 60: >> sun sun = 60 Variable names can be up to 63 characters long, start with a letter, and contain only letters, numbers or the underscore _ character. Variable names are case sensitive: sun and Sun are different! Multiple commands can appear on the same line, provided they are separated by a comma - if you want to see the result of the previous command - or a semicolon if you want to suppress the display: >> pc=24; mac=13, computers=sun+pc+mac mac = 13 computers = 97 This also shows that Matlab can evaluate expressions involving previously defined variables. However, each variable must be assigned a value before it is used in calculations. For example, >> unix_workstations=sun+alpha ??? Undefined function or variable 'alpha'. All variables in the workspace can be listed with the command
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>> who Your variables are: ans mac computers pc

sun

To get information about who (or any other Matlab command), type >> help who WHO List current variables. WHO lists the variables in the current workspace. WHOS lists more information about each variable. ...etc. clear command removes all variables from the workspace; clear some_variable removes some_variable from the workspace. In the examples above we manipulated with integer numbers. To perform basic operations on real numbers (rational & irrational), Matlab uses familiar from the Fortran course double precision floating-point arithmetic. As we will see later discussing the floating point arithmetic, Matlab computations use about 16 decimal digits. However, unlike in Fortran or C, we do not need to declare a type (integer, real) of our variables. Consider the example: compute the volume of a sphere with a radius of 0.69 cm ( V = 4r 3 ). First, in Matlab is pi. Typing
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>> r=.69; V=4*pi*r^3/3 V = 1.3761 displays the result using 5 digits (default format). If more digits are needed, we can use format command, which controls how numbers appear on the screen. Read help on format,which is rather informative:
>> help format FORMAT Set output format. All computations in MATLAB are done in double precision. FORMAT may be used to switch between different output display formats as follows: FORMAT Default. Same as SHORT. FORMAT SHORT Scaled fixed point format with 5 digits. FORMAT LONG Scaled fixed point format with 15 digits. FORMAT SHORT E Floating point format with 5 digits. FORMAT LONG E Floating point format with 15 digits. ......etc.

Thus, for example

>> format long e >> V V = 1.376055281384172e+000 outputs more digits; e here stands for exponent, e.g., >> 254.178 ans = 2.541780000000000e+002 254.178 = 2.54178 10 . To return to the default mode, type
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>> format short Note, that format does not affect computations. Matlab also knows complex numbers. Letters i and j can be used as imaginary part, unless redefined: >> (1+2i)*(1-2i) ans = 5 >> (1+2i)/(1-2i) ans = -0.6000 + 0.8000i If variable i was assigned and used as a real number, >> i=34 i = 34 to redefine it to be a >> i=sqrt(-1) Here sqrt(x)is a built-in Matlab mathematical function; many other elementary and special functions are available: exp(x), log(x), log10(x), sin(x), tan(x), etc. To find the proper Matlab spelling of a function name, lookfor command is useful, for example: >> lookfor cosecant
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1 , enter the command clear i,j or:

ACSC ACSCH CSC CSCH

Inverse cosecant. Inverse hyperbolic cosecant. Cosecant. Hyperbolic cosecant.

lookfor searches Matlab system files for the string cosecant, and finds csc(x). lookfor can take some time to complete, type Ctrl-c to interrupt the search. EXERCISES 1. Evaluate in Matlab and display results using different formats 4 52 6 a) --------------------------------------------------4 3 + 4 2 )( 4 3 4 2 ) ( 1 b) 3 + ---------------------------------------1 7 + -----------------------------1 15 + ----------------11 + -------293 8- 77 c) sin asin 3 + asin ----- ----- 5 17 85 2. Explain the difference between exp(pi/3i),exp(pi/3*i), exp(pi/3/i). 3. Check the formulas e 2 - x = -- , ----- . 6 3
ix

= cos x + i sin x and sin ( ix ) = i sinh x for

3 1 4. Compute magnitude and angle of xy and x y , where x = -- + i ------ , 2 2 1 and y = ------ ( 1 + i ) . (explore help on abs and angle commands) 2
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